Re: Hermes and Orlanthi Crime

From: David Weihe <weihe_at_eagle.danet.com>
Date: Fri, 13 Mar 1998 10:38:43 EST


> From: Jeff Richard <jrichard_at_cnw.com>
> Subject: Hermes and Orlanthi Crime
>
> Andrew Joelson writes that the Greco-Roman "thief god" was:
> >"Hermes/Mercury. However, he wasn't the "Thief God", he was the God of
> Messengers, Medicine, >Thieves, and probably a couple of other things that
> I have forgotten. Which is to say, being Patron of >Thieves was one of his
> many aspects."
>
> The statement Hermes was Patron of Thieves is an unfortunate legacy of AD&D
> and has little to do with the actual "cult of Hermes".

Given that I first heard of Hermes as the god of thieves, merchants, and travellers when I was in third or fourth grade, long before D&D let alone AD&D, your statement is a bit inaccurate. In fact, I probably read that statement in Bullfinch's, in which case it was made long before E. Gary Gygax was a gleam in his father's eye, and possibly before HIS father was a gleam..

> In the Homeric Hymn

 skipped
> Hermes was invoked as a mediator, a source of clever
> inspiration, and as a male fertility figure - not the patron of some
> non-existent class of "thieves".

But he was used as patron for a real activity of thievery, and its real practitioners, just as Saint Dismas (the Good thief at the Crucifixion) is in the Catholic Calendar of Saints.

Maybe Hermes didn't particularly like that, but he wasn't in any shape to object, now was he?


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